Morpheus Tales Flash Fiction Horror Special Ebook

by Morpheus Tales

  The sun is ready to make its debut and the spiders have finished their work. They are looking at the one that started it all. When it feels it has their complete attention it injects its poison.

  Chloe wriggles frantically. The pain is fierce; her movements become more erratic. She can feel something happening inside her body. It feels like her insides are melting.

  The spiders are in for a long wait.

  But the meal at the end of it will be well worth it.

  The horror and revulsion of the crowd behind Olivia thickened the air, pushing her forward, bringing her nose mere inches from the two figures. This close, she could smell the faint odour of paint still clinging to their faces. Empty grey eyes returned her gaze, regarding her with bored disinterest even as her stare grew more captivated.

  A doctor would have called them female, had a doctor been present. Their clothing played at femininity with low necklines and short skirts, mocking the loose skin and brittle bones that hunger and disease had left in place of a woman’s curves. Olivia became keenly aware of the weight of her own breasts as she leaned forward, studying the two figures intensely. Curiosity and fascination was overtaking her, glimmering beneath her disgust like the forgotten beauty lying beneath the gaudy paint and gaping scars on the faces of the women before her.

  “Hideous, aren’t they?” came a whisper from the dark behind her. Murmurs of agreement rolled through the spectators, followed by nervous shuffling to remind themselves that they were still human. Olivia could see the horrified grimaces twisting their perfect faces without turning her head. She kept her gaze fixed, knowing that her obvious interest in the two figures was making the crowd even more uncomfortable. A self-conscious cringe began working at her hands and shoulders, pulling her back toward the group, but her curiosity was stronger. She remained in place, heart pounding in excitement and fear, as the creatures continued to stare at her. With each passing moment, their hollow eyes seemed to grow more inviting, as though they were silently begging her to rescue them from their torment. Olivia felt a well of sorrow spring up in her chest, flowing through her arms and legs. At first she thought it was pity, but soon realized it was longing. As grotesque as they were, she longed to touch their mottled grey skin and feel the gashes in their faces. She could almost feel the cold, rough flesh beneath her fingers. Slowly, she lifted a hand toward the closer woman, toward the gaping wound in her cheek. Her fingers reached out as if to grasp a part of the raw humanity she saw in the ruins of the woman’s face, a kind of humanity she had never seen.

  Above her head, a speaker popped to life, announcing the return of the guide’s manufactured cheer.

  “As this artist’s rendition clearly demonstrates, the initial experiments into modifying the human genome met with disastrous consequences. The women depicted in this painting displays symptoms of the enhanced cellular degeneration brought about by gene therapy designed to increase their resilience and life span. The treatment was successful in its early stages, allowing them to sustain basic life functions even after suffering serious injury. Ironically, however, the long-term effects of the process led to the eventual cessation of function in all non-essential organs and tissues, producing the emaciated appearance you see before you. In addition, the process eroded cognitive functioning, slowly reducing sane individuals to instinct-driven animals incapable of thought or communication.

  “Once the long-term effects of this process became apparent, an international coalition was formed to eradicate those afflicted by the degeneration. Simultaneously, a summit held in Washington, D.C., called for the purification of the human gene pool. It was a desperate measure, but representatives from around the globe realized that it was the only way to prevent the spread of the damaged genes.

  “Please proceed into the next room.” The lights came up, causing many identical sets of eyes to blink, but Olivia’s gaze never shifted. “The emergency protocols enacted by the summit ushered in a worldwide panic, but as we will see, the sterilization of the human genome was our race’s only hope of survival.”

  “Dude, check it out.”

  I followed my friend Mike’s finger to the end of the bar. A head of bleach-blonde hair, complete with black roots, bobbed in a sea of men in flannel shirts and baseball caps.

  “Blick!”

  The circle of men roared with laughter.

  Mike turned to me and said, “Dude, did you hear that magnificent belch?”

  “The whole bar heard, man. Gross.”

  “It’s hilarious, Joe. I gotta get me some of that.”

  Wanting to get as far away from that as possible, I said, “Hey, let’s go; a new club opened up down the street, I think.”

  “You go on if you want. I’m gonna listen to the show.”

  I watched in disgust as Mike staggered to the outer circle of the burp fans.

  “Blick!”

  “You’re a star, baby. Take the stage,” Mike yelled.

  The rest of the men turned toward Mike, scowls on their faces.

  Crash.

  The circle widened. Two hooters fighting like bagged cats stretched the woman’s tube top to where her elongated tits almost touched the bar. I could have sworn I saw her snatch peeking out from her denim miniskirt as she climbed to sit on a throne of spilled beer and bar nuts. Someone handed her a bottle of Bud. She drank deep. She opened her mouth.

  “Bl-ac-ac-ack and Decker!”

  The guys cheered.

  “You da bomb,” Mike announced.

  After another swill, she burped, “Ar-ac-ac-na cat!”

  “Sing it, baby,” Mike shouted.

  At that, she crawled to her knees. She teetered on her heels for a few seconds, and then stood, legs wobbly. She chugged down the rest of the beer. She belched, “Blick!” and threw the empty bottle across the bar, where it struck the back wall and shattered.

  The bartender, enthralled with the spectacle, awoke from his trance. “All right. Show’s over. Out. Now.”

  Ms. Blicks, my moniker for her since I never found out her real name, turned toward him. Her blue eyes blazed and she snarled at him. However, that didn’t put off Mike. He inched closer to her. He was beat out by a burly guy in a sweaty t-shirt and ball cap. The guy grabbed Ms. Blicks by the forearms and pulled her down. He wrapped his hairy arms around her. Unfortunately, they headed my way.

  A few feet from me he leaned to her and said, “I wanna stick my finger where you shit.”

  I was torn whether to laugh or gag.

  Just then Mike bounded over. He grabbed Ms. Blicks. “She’s coming with me.”

  The guy in the cap puffed out his chest. “She’s mine.”

  By then the bartender had come out from behind the bar. “I don’t care whose she is. Get her out of here.”

  Mike’s eyes pleaded with me. At the time I figured what the fuck and stuck out my leg. Ball-cap boy fell flat, giving Mike enough time to escape with his prize.

  I also figured I’d worn out my welcome and left right behind them.

  As I stepped outside I saw Ms. Blicks reach out with her red-clawed hand and drag Mike into a nearby alley. I waited a minute and approached them.

  I peered around the corner. Ms. Blicks had gotten hold of more beer somehow. She ignored Mike’s pawing and drank deep. She kept drinking and drinking until the whole bottle was empty and she had let it slip from her hand. Her mouth opened wide. Wider. Her mouth glistened. A golden iridescent bubble expanded from around her blood-red lips.

  I was too stunned to warn Mike, who probably wouldn’t have heard me anyway. By then he’d pulled down her tube top and was busy sucking on one of her ginormous tits.

  The bubble grew. And grew. It encompassed Mike. Then her lips moved.

  “Blick!”

  The bubble tore itself from her and rolled down the alley, past me, across the street, and onto a dumpster where it burst. The vibration ground Mike into the metal. His flesh flapped like butt cheeks after a beer fart. Except that Mike was the beer fa
rt. A personified beer fart.

  Beer gas roiled out from his every orifice. The area sounded like a giant whoopee cushion sat on by a thousand people all at once. It was loud, long, and deafening. Mike’s body shook as if in orgasm. But the smell. The stench. It was worse than a thousand beer farts. The stench was oily, rotten, cheesy, breezy, stagnant. The stench was worse than a thousand dumps. Worse than a thousand cases of runny diarrhoea flowing across a thousand rotting corpses.

  My eyes stung. I couldn’t breathe. I somehow ran down the street toward my car without barfing. Piss on Mike. I had to get out of there.

  The next morning my clothes still stank. I had to triple bag them before throwing them out. My skin reeked. It’s been a month and sixty showers later and I can still smell it on me.

  But what about Mike? He’s still in the hospital. I’m on my way to see him now. They say he’s being transferred to the state sanatorium today. I could corroborate Mike’s story.

  Yeah, right.

 

  “Have you ever heard of the Turner Beast?” My grandpa asked while sitting in his wooden rocker by the fireplace. Jane shook her head from side to side as I took a sip of Moxie. Anna released a groan. We all sat on the couch in our pyjamas. Jane sat on one side of me hugging her favourite stuffed animal, Lonnie, between her arms and chest and rested her pale chin on its brown, furry head. Anna sat on the other side of me brushing her auburn hair and picking at the bowl of kettle corn in her lap between strokes. “Well then let me tell you about the creature that roams the woods just outside this very cabin,” he continued, looking at me and winking, “looking to feed on young girls.”

  His faded blue eyes sparkled from the honey glow of the crackling fire that illuminated the room. I smiled and returned the gesture. Since I could remember, I’ve always came to my grandfather’s house in Turner, Maine, for the summers. And since I turned thirteen this year, I was allowed to bring a few of my friends with me from Chicago.

  “Matter of fact, this time last year it’s believed that one of the locals shot it in the leg,” he continued, “But they never found the beast.”

  “What’d it look like?” I said. “Where’d it go?”

  “Yeah, what happened to it?” Asked Jane who leaned across me grabbing a handful of kettle corn from Anna’s lap.

  Anna elbowed me in the rib. “There’s no monster out there, Carmilla. It’s not real,” she snapped.

  Jane leaned forward. “How do you know, Anna? Could be real.”

  “You believe in Bigfoot, too?” Anna asked, rolling her eyes, “It’s just a story.”

  My grandpa laughed. “Ok, ok. Calm down,” he said. “Anna’s right. It’s a story.”

  “See.” Anna said and stuck her tongue out at me and Jane.

  “A story... that is real, Anna.”

  I nudged Anna back with my elbow. “My grandpa doesn’t lie.”

  “The Turner Beast was never found,” he said staring at the crackling fire, “they tracked its trail of blood but came up empty.” He reached for the poker and began stirring the logs.

  With a mouth full of kettle corn, Jane asked, “So what did it look like, Mr. Moody? The guy who shot it saw it, right?”

  My grandpa returned the poker and glanced back at Jane. “He said he didn’t see much that night due to the fog. But he heard it...yelp.”

  “Cuz he shot it, right?” Jane said.

  “Yeah, cuz he shot it.”

  “Come on!” Anna blurted. “How do you know it still roams the woods outside, Mr. Moody, huh?”

  My grandpa smiled at Anna. “Because I’ve seen it, too.”

  Anna dropped her brush into the bowl of kettle corn.

  “Eww,” Jane moaned. “I wasn’t eating that or anything.”

  “And to answer your question, Carmilla. The local’s body was found dead a few days later. He was torn apart. Arms and legs gnawed down to the bone. Head ripped off. “

  “I’m done,” Anna said as she set the bowl with her brush still in it onto the floor.

  “Me too.” Jane followed.

  “So what does it look like then?” I asked.

  My grandpa leaned toward us. An orange hue from the fire danced across his face.

  “Just like the stuffed animal in your arms, Jane. Brown and furry.”

  With a quick flick, Jane released Lonnie to the floor.

  “Some say it’s a werewolf, others say it’s just a coy dog. But no one really knows...” My grandpa checked his wristwatch and sat back up. “You girls should get to bed now. It’s getting late.”

  “There ain’t no beast out there,” Anna said as she and Jane crawled into the sleeping bags on the floor. “Yeah, because it’s in here,” Jane replied and giggled, looking over at Anna who scowled at her in return.

  I tucked myself into some blankets on the couch while my grandpa got up and came over to me.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, sugar,” he whispered, “your first kill is always the hardest.” He kissed me on the forehead.

  “Both?” I asked.

  “You won’t have a choice.” He winked at me.

  I returned the gesture and he limped away.

  Such a prosaic word for the end of the world. They called it an “Event.” A Nuclear Biological Chemical Event. The NBC bombs killed people, but most of the death came later. What the bombs didn’t kill, the bat fungus did. What the bat fungus didn’t kill, radiation sickness did. What the radiation sickness didn’t kill, cholera and other diseases did. There weren’t many people left, and nobody had talked on the shortwave about the Event in a long time. Only static. Sun Bo checked it every day anyway.

  She had holed up with the dwindling numbers of other survivors in an old circus building. Located in the outskirts of town, it survived the bomb blasts. Dying of radiation sickness and chemical burns and disease, they fought the rats for control of the building. One day the rats were gone. After hauling that day’s dead outside, Sun Bo discovered why. The rats had been eaten by the roaches.

  The roaches were almost as big as the rats. They had an unnerving habit of whipping both foot-long antennae forward and scuttling with distressing speed toward whatever they wanted to eat. Some of them didn’t even mind the light. A bold one didn’t flinch when Sun Bo waved her lantern at it. It flicked its antennae at her but did not move. The roach pulsated. Sun Bo first thought she was watching it breathe, but after a minute realized the breathing rhythm was slower and independent. The pulsating must be the beat of an oversized heart. She didn’t know if roaches had hearts, but it was an animal, so she figured it must. Sun Bo thought they looked like the iridescent armour-plated toy tanks little Yoichi wanted so badly for a Christmas that never came. Sun Bo shook her head. That is the past. The past is madness.

  Sun Bo hauled another body outside, grimacing with effort and pain. The roach followed her, but stayed out of stomping distance. She wasn’t sure she could stomp one anyway, with the burns. She didn’t know if they were radiation burns or chemical burns, but they covered her body in a patchwork of pain. Her feet were the worst. Sometimes, in a fit of peevishness she thought her feet resembled pizza.

  Four more had died during the night, leaving just her and Yvette, who was too sick to help that day. By the time Sun Bo brought the last body outside, the roach and its friends had almost skeletonized the first body.

  Exhausted by moving the bodies, Sun Bo collapsed on her sleeping bag in the corner and decided to take a nap. She extinguished the lantern and fell asleep.

  Jolted awake by a sharp pain in her foot, Sun Bo kicked and felt something crunch and pop and her feet were covered in fluid. She flailed for the lantern amidst scuttling and scurrying. She jumped to her feet after lighting the lantern, and gulped air. The roaches fled her circle of light, but she could hear them moving in the darkness. She took a couple steps toward the wall to inspect the cloudy soupy mass sliding down the wall where she had crushed the roach and realized her feet didn’t hurt anymore. She sat and looked
at her feet. They were covered in roach blood. She touched the wall with a finger and slicked some of the blood on a burn on her arm. The relief was immediate. She scraped what she could off the wall and lathered her arms. She hunted down a few more roaches. They popped like water balloons filled with syrup.

  She couldn’t bring herself to slather the gunk on her face. But she knew the burns had to be treated; her nose and one of her cheeks melted away a week ago. Gangrene or worse was a threat. Sun Bo didn’t have any hypodermics, but she found a tattoo machine in one of the carny’s quarters. The circus generators still had fuel, and there was a lot left since all she ran was the shortwave. She loaded the tattoo machine with the roach sludge, sat in front of a broken mirror, and screamed for a long time.

  Sun Bo passed out. When she awoke, she lay on the floor, body wracked by spasms, unable to make her muscles work right. She lay there for two days, defenceless, but the roaches left her alone. When she was finally able to move again, the tattoo on her face was glowing, but she was alive, and the burns were starting to heal. Nothing would save the holes where her cheek and nose had been, so she found a clown nose to wear so she wouldn’t have to look at the black hole in the middle of her face. Then she looked for Yvette.

  Yvette hadn’t moved since Sun Bo saw her last. Yvette stared up with glassy, unblinking eyes when Sun Bo leaned over her with the tattoo machine.

  Yvette didn’t scream. Until the end.

  Lou stared at his reflection in the fun house mirror. He moved his body side to side. He took a step back. His body looked the same as it did in a normal mirror. He sighed. Fun houses just weren’t so fun any more. Lou could not remember the last time he looked all distorted in a fun house mirror reflection. Perhaps before he became a clown? That was many years ago…

  Lou pulled out the knife he had hidden in his trench coat pocket and sliced the person standing next to him.

  “Ow! What the fuck, Lou! Don’t you ever look before you stab your spectators?” It was his wife, friend, lover, and co-clown Alicia.